Power plant.



0. K. LUSCOMB.

POWER PLANT.

APPLICATION FILED 050.31, 1911- Patented Aug. 13, 1918.

OTIS K. LUSCOMZ F AL S'ION, MASSACHUSETTS.

IOWER PLANT.

Specification of Letters Patent Patented Au 13, 1918.

Application filed December 31, 1917. Serial ,No. 209,648.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, Orrs KERRO LUscoMB, a citizen of the United States of America, and resident of Allston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented new and useful Improvements in Power Plants, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to a power-plant for use in automobiles and other restricted places and more particularly to a powerplant comprising both mechanical and electrical parts.

Power-plants of the character referred to usually comprise an internal combustion engine of the piston and cylinder type, a crank-shaft arranged to be driven by the engine, and means associated with the engine shaft for producing unidirectional current to fire the cylinders, etc. Heretofore it has been customary to employ an ordinary direct'current generator to produce the uni directional current and either to mount the rotor of the generator directly on the crank shaft at one side of the engine or to gear the rotor to the crank shaft at one side of the engine. Both of these methods of associating the generator with the engine are for several reasons faulty and objectionable. When the rotor is mounted on the engine shaft it occupies a considerable length of shaft and the clutch, change-speed gears. and other partsassociated with the shaft must be located a considerable distance from the engine. In many cases where the parts must be closely grouped, as in automobiles, this arrangement is practically prohibitive. The use of gears avoids the undue axial spacing of the parts but results in an undesirable lateral displacement of the genorator. Moreover. gears are noisy and waste a large amount of power. 7

It is the principal object of the present invention to overcome the difficulties incident to the above and other old types of construction and to effect a new correlation of the parts affording both efficiency and compactness. It is also an object of the invention to effect a novel association of the electrical withthe mechanical elements of the apparatus so as particularly to adapt the power-plant to the peculiar requirements of automobiles.

In its broader aspect my improved powerplant comprises an engine, a shaft extending from opposite sides of the engine and arranged to be driven by the engine, together with means associated with the shaft for producing unidirectional current, the plant being characterized in that the current producing means is mounted in part on the engine shaft at one end of the engine and in part on the engine shaft at the other end of the engine. The partof the current producing means at one end of the engine preferably comprises a permanent-magnet rotor having a plurality of poles projecting radially outwardly into proximity to a plurality of stationary windings arranged around the periphery of the rotor. By employing a permanent magnet rotor no sliding contacts are required to conduct current from the rotor and the axial dimension of the rotor may be made very small. The stationary windings around the rotor are spaced from the shaft such a distance that they are disposed in a circular region about the shaft which ordinarily is not occupied by any mechanism. The part of the current pro ducing means at the other end of the en gine preferably comprises a device for rendering the current unidirectional. By associating the current producing means with the engine and shaft in. this unique manner the means may be mounted directly on the shaft in the limited spaces at opposite ends of the engine between the engine and associated parts, such as the clutch, change-speed gearing, radiator, etc. without projecting a substantial distance from either side of the engine.

In a more specific aspectthe invention comprises a unit functioning both as a pulley and as a commutating device. This unit is particularly adapted for use in automobile powe-r-plants in which the fan in front of the engine is driven from the engine shaft. This unit makes it possible to drive the customary fan and also to com-- mutate alternating current in the space ordinarily occupied by the fan pulley.

In order more fully to disclose the nature of the present invention I have illustrated a power-plant embodying the invention in the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a side view of the entire plant;

Fig. 2 is an inner end view of the combined pulley and commutator unit;

Fig. 3 is a central longitudinal section of said unit on line 3 3 of Fig. 2; Fig. 4 is an outer end view of said unit on a somewhat smaller scale than employed in Figs. 2 and 3; and

Fig. 5 is an end elevation of the current generating means at the left end (Fig. 1) of the engine.

The embodiment of the invention illustrated in the drawings comprises an internal combustion engine 1, of the pistonand-cylinder type, a crank-shaft 2 arranged to be driven by the engine, together with current generating means associated with the crank-shaft 2 at opposite ends of the engine as illustrated in Fig. 1.

The portion of the current generating means disposed at the left-hand end of the engine comprises a rotor R and a stator S, the rotor being fast on crank-shaft 2 in close proximity to the engine, and the stator being stationarily mounted about the rotor concentrically with the shaft 2. The rotor R is provided with a plurality of magnetic poles projecting radially therefrom and, 111

7 order to avoid the use of slip contacts to convey current to the rotor, the magnetic poles are preferably formed of permanent magnets. These magnets may be in the form of U-magnets 3 cast into a cylindrical core of bakelite or other suitable material, with their ends projecting radially from the outer periphery of the core in the transverse plane of the stator; or the poles may be formed of bar magnets 4 cast or otherwise suitably secured in the core of the rotor, al-

ternate magnets having poles of opposite to polarity projecting outwardly; or the core may be formed of magnetic material with projections 5 extending radially therefrom at suitable intervals, these projections being permanently magnetized so that alternate projections are of opposite polarity. The stator S is preferably formed of an outer ring 6 of magnetic material with projecj ections 7 extending radially inwardly therefrom at intervals corresponding to the intervals between the rotor poles. The stator poles 7 are provided with windings which are preferably connected in series with alternate windings wound in opposite directions so that the windings will function cumulatively.

While the respective parts of the electrical elements of my improved apparatus may be connected together in any suitable manner, I believe the following connections to be preferable. One end 8 of the stator windings is connected to the crank-shaft through the medium of the left end bearing 9, and the other end 10 of the stator windings is intended to be connected to one side of the working circuit. One side of the commutatin-g mechanism, namely, the eommutating disks, is also grounded on the crank-shaft, and the'other side of the eommutating 'mechanism, namely, the eommutating brush, is intended to be connected to the side of the C which is preferably integrally united with a pulley P. When uniting the eommutating mechanism with the pulley, the pulley is preferably provided with a radial extending flange 11 upon the outer face of which is disposed a series of electrical contact memhere 12. The contact members 12 are-preferably in the form of rivets having their heads set into a ring-13 of insulating material secured on the face of the flange 11, the outer ends of the rivet heads being flush with the outer face of the ring 13 and the inner face of the rivet heads being separated from the flange 11 by insulating material. Each of the rivets passes through. an opening in the flange 11 and is secured to the flange in suitable manner, as for example, by being headed over on the inside of the flange. Thus each rivet makes contact with the pulley flange and hence with the terminal 8 of the stator S at the other end of the engine through the medium of the pulley shaped and is provided with an opening to receive the extension 15 on the pulley P. The inner endof the casing 14 fits into an annular recess in the periphery of the insulating ring 13 so that the outer peripheries of the flange 11, the ring 13 and the casing ll are substantially flush andcontinuous. The casing 1 1 is held in position by split ring 16 fitting into a groove in the extension 15 of the pulley P. The split ring 16 is formed of elastic material so that it may be bent sutficiently to be moved over the en larged end of the extension 15 in applying or removing the casing 1 1.

The eommutating brush'me'chanism mounted on the casing 1% comprises a tubular member 17 fitted into a tubular extension 18 on the casing 1 1, the two tubular members slidingly mounted in the tubular member 17 so as to contact at its forward end with the contacts 12 on the pulley flange, the brush 22 being yieldingly urged forwardly by means of a coiled compression spring 23 held in position in the outer end of the tube 17 by means of a cap 2% threaded over the outer end of the tube 17.

In order to prevent rotation of the casing 14 and commutator brush carried thereby, a yoke 25 is mounted on the lower end of theengine frame so as to extend upwardly into operative relationship with the casing 14. The upper end 26 of the yoke 25 is semi-circular and is disposed concentrically with the axis of the shaft 2. Slots 27 are provided in the upper end of the yoke concentrically with the axis of the casing let, and bolts 28 extend outwardly from the easing through the slots 27 in such manner that the casing 14 may be angularly adjusted about the shaft and then be secured in ad justed position by means of the bolts 28.

The operation of the apparatus is as follows: hen the crank-shaft 2 is rotated by the engine the rotor R is rotated within the stator S, thereby generating alternating current in the working circuit. This current is transmitted through the crank-shaft to the commutating mechanism C on the pulley P and there rendered unidirectional, the commutator brush being angularly adjusted about the shaft so that the Working circuit is closed only during a portion of each positive or negative half-cycle or current produced by the rotor R and stator S. Thus, as shown in the drawings, the number of contacts on the commutator is equal to half the number of poles on the rotor and stator respectively, and the commutating brush is so adjusted as to make contact with the commutator contacts during a portion of either the positive or negative half cycles of current produced by the stator S and rotor B, there being four positive and four negative half-cycles of current produced by the generator per revolution and hence four commutator contacts 12.

By uniting the commutating mechanism C with the pulley P this imit can be placed in the restricted space in front of the engine in the ordinary automobile, the unit serving to drive the cooling fan (not shown) and also to render the alternating current unidirectional. By constructing the generator in the peculiar manner'illustrated it can be placed in the restricted space at the rear of the engine of an automobile between the engine and the clutch mechanism, this being especially due to the fact that the permanent-magnet rotor is extremely thin and to the fact that there is ample space for the stator in the region about the crank-shaft immediately in the rear of the engine. Thus while it would be impossible, or at least wholly impracticable, to place an ordinary direct current generator either in front of or behind an automobile engine,it is possible to associate the current producing mechanism with the engine shaft by dividing the mechanism, forming the respective parts in the peculiar manner herein disclosed, and placing the parts at opposite ends of the engine in the restricted spaces ordinarily found in automobiles.

This invention'is particularly adapted to be employed in reorganizing power plants after being installed in automobiles of the Ford and other types where there is space in the rear of the engine for the stator of the character described and where there is suflicient space in front of the engine for substituting my combined pulley and commutator unit for the fan pulley ordinarily provided. If the generating and commutating elements were grouped together as is customary they could not be placed either in front of or behind the engine owing to the lack of space.

I claim:

1. A power-plant for use in automobiles and other restricted places comprising an engine, a shaft extending from opposite sides of the engine and arranged to be driven by the engine, and means for producing unidirectional current, said means being mounted in part on said shaft on one side of the engine and in part on said shaft on the other side of the engine, whereby the current producing means extends from the engine approximately equal distances on opposite sides thereof.

2. A power-plant adapted for use in automobiles and other restricted places comprising an engine, a shaft extending from opposite sides of the engine and arranged to be driven by the engine, means for generating alternating current including a rotary element mounted on said shaft on one side of and in proximity to the engine, and means for rendering the alternating current unidirectional including a rotary element mounted on said shaft on the other side of and in proximity to the engine.

8. A power-plant adapted for use in automobiles and other restricted places co1nprising an engine, a shaft extending from opposite sides of the engine and arranged to be driven by the engine, an alternating current generator having a rotor mounted on said shaft on one side of and in proximity to the engine, a combined pulley and commutator mounted on said shaft on the other side of and in proximity to the engine, and a stationary commutating brush contacting with the commutator, the generator and commutator being associated together so as to produce unidirectional current.

4:. A power-plant adapted for use in automobiles and other restricted places comprising an engine, a shaft extending from opposite sides of the engine and arranged to be driven by the engine, means for generating alternating current includinga permanentmagnet rotor mounted on said shaft on one side of and in proximity to the engine and stationary windings magnetically associated with the rotor, means for rendering altern ating current unidirectional including a rotary element mounted on said shaft on the other side of and in proximity to the engine, and conductors including said shaft for electrically connecting said tWo means together, said two means being a'ngularly arranged about said shaft relatively to each other so as to produce unidirectional current.

5. A power-plant adapted for use in automobiles and other restricted places comprising an engine, a shaft extending from opposite sides of the engine and arranged to be driven by the engine, a pulley mounted on said shaft on one side of the engine, and

means for producing unidirectional current comprising a rotor mounted on said shaft on the other side of the engine, a stationary stator magnetically associated With the rotor, a disk commutator mounted on one side of said pulley With its contact surface disposed transversely of said shaft, and a stationary brush contacting With said face.

6. In a power-plant adapted for use in automobiles and other restricted places, the combination of a pulley and commutator in-, tegrally united, the commutator being disposed on one side of the pulley with its contact face disposed transversely of the axis of the pulley.

Signed by me at Boston, Massachusetts, this fourteenth day of December, 1917.

OTIS K. LUSGOMB.

Copies of this patent may be obtained for five cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, I). 0. i 

